Yulin dog meat festival

Every June the city of Yulin, situated in the Guangxi province in Southern China, celebrates the summer solstice with a dog-eating festival, where around 10,000 dogs and 4,000 cats are tortured, killed and eaten. Many of the animals are strays, but there are also stolen pets, and some people even sell their own pets to the restaurants. The dogs are subject to horrific suffering, much because of the myth that the meat of a tortured dog tastes better.

It’s legal to eat dog meat in China, and as there are no animal welfare laws to protect pets, there is no punishment for torturing them. However there are strict rules that the animals must have 'health certificates' before they are transported, but this is completely ignored by the Yulin authorities. Most of the animals are transported long distances in tiny, cramped cages to the festival area and many of them die from shock, starvation and dehydration on the journey. Many of the animals are poisoned or sick, and there are serious hygiene problems. There’s a high risk of rabies and other diseases especially for the people who handle the animals. The Guangxi province has the highest number of rabies deaths in China.

In 2015 there was an unprecedented movement on the social media to stop the festival. The hashtag #StopYulin2015 had about 1.3 million tweets on Twitter during June, and there was a great number of online petitions to ban the festival. The Canadian Raise Ur Paw’s petition to the Governor of Yulin Guang Xi Province and the Chinese Minister of Agriculture was supported by Ricky Gervais and other celebrities and received more than 4 million signatures. The festival also gained publicity especially in the English media, but also in other languages.

Despite global outrage and the efforts of Chinese and international activists who were on site to protest, the festival went on in June 2015. In late May the Yulin authorities claimed that there would be no dog section in this year’s festival, but it was obviously a lie. The animals were butchered beforehand and during the night to avoid the activists, and the character for ”dog” was covered up at many restaurants. This year the dog meat traders were very particularly aggressive towards the activists. When some of the activists wanted to buy some animals, the traders threatened that they would torture the animals even more if they didn’t get the price they wanted. As in previous years, Mrs. Yang Xiaoyun, 65, saved hundreds of dogs and cats by buying them with her savings and transporting them to her home town where she has a dog shelter.

Below are links to articles in different languages about the Yulin festival 2015.